Waste company to recycle trommel fines

A rendered design image of Ace Liftaway’s new Trommel Fines Recycling Plant. It is expected to be installed later this year. (Image: CDE Global)

Waste management firm Ace Liftaway is to add a new trommel fines recycling plant to its waste recycling and processing facility in Hampshire, UK, as part of efforts to drive a more circular economy across the south of the country.

Ace Liftaway was established in 1988 by husband and wife team Philip and Melanie Liddell.

The family-run business, which started out with just one truck and eight skips in its fleet, has since grown to offer construction & demolition waste services across Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset, and now has a skip fleet comprising over 1,500 units.

The company has invested in a new 90 tph wet processing plant - complete with an integrated eddy current separator (ECS) for separating non-ferrous metals from the waste stream, from manufacturer CDE.

The new equipment will be installed at the company’s Yokesford Hill site near Southampton, where Ace Liftaway currently recycles roughly 90% of all incoming dry waste streams into aggregates. Trommel fines currently account for a “large proportion of the remaining 10% of waste processed” by the company.

Speaking of the firm’s decision to add the new recycling plant, Philip Liddell, Ace Liftaway managing director, said: “The core of our business is skip hire services and we’re proud of the very high recycling rates we’ve achieved to date through the dry processing techniques we use at Yokesford.

“However, the residual stream from this process, our trommel fines, requires a more robust approach and that’s why we’ve partnered with CDE.

“Trommel fines have a lot of value in them and we want to try to extract that value,” he says. “With this new solution we can unlock their potential to extract resources with commercial resale value while saving on landfill disposal costs. It’s worthwhile economically and environmentally.”

According to CDE, trommel fines - which consist of fibrous materials such as wood, aggregate, sand, glass and organics, are often sent to landfill as they are among the most difficult of materials to process. 

CDE’s business development director for the UK and Ireland, David Kinloch, said: “Trommel fines are a source of significant cost for contractors, but also one of opportunity.

“Whether they are subject to the standard or lower-rate landfill tax they represent a business expense, that is unless they are processed effectively.

“With CDE technology, a business can transform that cost into a fresh revenue stream through the recovery of clean sand and aggregates extracted from their trommel fines waste.”

Due to be commissioned later this year, Ace Liftaway’s new trommel fines recycling plant will remove lightweight and organic material from the waste stream, and convert the heavy fractions into sellable sand and aggregate products measuring 0-2mm, 0-5mm, 5-10mm, 10-20mm and +20mm.

Phillip said: “My aim is that the by-product of the silt will become a recognised soil conditioner which will stem from a robust testing regime.”

He added: “By incorporating a metals recovery station we’re confident we can maximise material recovery from the trommel fines waste stream and achieve fast return on our investment; our estimate is within just two years.”